Workpiece registration station for a decorating machine

Abstract

A reduction to the traveling motion of bottles along a delivery conveyor in an intermittent motion decorating machine is provided by one of a pair of workpiece feed cams rotatably supported in a side-by-side relation to rotate about spaced horizontal axes lying in a common horizontal plane. The workpiece feed cams have feed cam tracks for receiving cam followers of each of plurality of vertical bottle carriers. One of the feed cam tracks reduces the speed of the bottle carriers from a relatively high entry speed corresponding to the through put speed in the decorating machine to the speed of the deliver conveyor for more densely populating the delivery conveyor with workpieces. Carrier transfer members at each of opposite ends of the workpiece feed cams transfer the bottle carriers from one to the other of the workpiece feed cams. A drive rotates the workpiece feed cams, carrier return cams and carrier transfer members. The decorating machine is provided with a registration station preceding spaced apart decorating stations. The registration station includes a drive to reduce the clamping pressure by chucks on a workpiece while establishing a predetermined orientation of each workpiece relative to the decorating stations.

1. An apparatus to establish a predetermined orientation of a surface of a workpiece at a registration station in an intermittent decorating machine including a plurality of horizontally spaced apart decorating stations preceded by said registration station; said apparatus including a workpiece carrier having chucks to independently rotatably support each workpiece while residing at each of said stations; and, a workpiece feed cam for advancing said workpiece carrier along said stations, said workpiece feed cam including a continuous motion cam track with a dwell period at each of said stations for presenting a workpiece on said workpiece carrier to register the orientation of the workpiece at said registration station and apply decoration to the workpiece at each of said horizontally spaced apart decorating stations. 
   
   
     2. The apparatus according to  claim 1  further including an operating system for reducing the clamping pressure applied to the workpieces by said chucks at said registration station during workpiece orientation. 
   
   
     3. The apparatus according to  claim 2  further including drives for rotating a workpiece supported by said chucks on said workpiece carrier; and, a registration member responsive to a predetermined site on said workpiece for stopping rotation of a workpiece by one of said drives at said registration station to establish the predetermined orientation of a surface of the workpiece to receive decoration at said decorating stations. 
   
   
     4. The apparatus according to  claim 3  further including a resilient member for applying a clamping pressure against a workpiece supported by said chucks, said operating system including an actuator for reducing said clamping pressure at said registration station. 
   
   
     5. A method to establish a predetermined orientation of a surface of a workpiece to receive decoration relative to decorating stations of an intermittent decorating machine, said method including the steps of providing an intermittent decorating machine having a plurality of horizontally spaced apart decorating stations preceded by a registration station; rotatably supporting each of a plurality of workpieces to independently rotate about elongated central axis of the workpieces while residing at each of said stations; and, using a workpiece feed cam for advancing said workpieces along said stations, said workpiece feed cam including a continuous motion cam track with a dwell period at each of said stations for presenting a workpiece to register the orientation of the workpiece at said registration station and apply decoration to the workpieces at each of said horizontally spaced apart decorating stations. 
   
   
     6. The method according to  claim 5  wherein the orientation of the workpiece at said registration station establishes a predetermined orientation of each workpiece with respect to each decorating station, said method including the further step of controlling rotation of each workpiece advancing to and from said decorating stations to retain use of said predetermined orientation at each of said decorating stations. 
   
   
     7. The method according to  claim 5  including the further steps of:
 decorating workpieces at each of said decorating stations; and  
 varying the conveyance speed of workpieces along a moving conveyor to change the speed of travel between entry and discharge speeds one of which corresponds to and the other differs from the conveyance speed by said moving conveyor.  
 
   
   
     8. The method according to  claim 7  including the further step of:
 engaging the workpieces while having elongated central axes extending vertically at vertically spaced sites to stabilize the movement of the workpiece along said moving conveyor.  
 
   
   
     9. The method according to  claim 8  wherein said step of varying the conveyance speed of workpieces includes depositing a succession of workpieces at spaced apart intervals of time; and wherein space between the consecutively advancing workpieces along said moving conveyor ever changing by the change to the speed of travel by the consecutively advancing workpieces. 
   
   
     10. The method according to  claim 9  wherein said moving conveyor moves at a constant speed.